Mermaid sculpture installed at Marina Park’s Soter Point

By Tim Pompey

A new mermaid has arrived
at Marina Park. She stands
about twenty-five feet tall, is made of bronze, and plays a flute. How
she landed there is quite a story. Let me explain.

Part 1 involves Sam
Povar, a retired financial and
employment executive and a longtime resident of the Pierpont area.
Sam’s wife, Oriana, died five years ago, and that’s really where this
story begins.

Sam wanted to provide a
memoriam for his beloved wife
and offered to do a private-public collaboration with the City of
Ventura to restore and beautify a piece of City owned property. “I was
the first person to do this,” Sam says. “Basically, I made the offer as
a private citizen to take City property and improve it.”

The end result was Povar
Plaza, installed directly
across the street from the entrance to the Ventura Pier. You may have
noticed it on walks, bike rides, or jogs to the pier. It’s the nice set
of benches and plaza at the base of the pedestrian overpass. Sam was
inspired and wanted to do more.

Part II involves his good
friend Andy Soter. Andy’s
daughter, Andrea, died tragically at age 47. Sam encouraged him to take
on a similar type of collaboration. Andy decided to restore the west
point of Marina Park with new benches, landscaping and picnic areas.
The area would be renamed Soter Point in memory of Andrea. That plan
was in progress, when Part III happened.

As Sam tells the story, “I got a call one day from
someone with a
very strange accent, I thought maybe Russian, maybe an older guy. I
didn’t know
this person and was ready to hang up, when he
mentioned he’d been referred by Denise Sindelar, Supervisor of Public
and Visual Arts for the City of Ventura. When he said that, I told him
‘Come on over’.”

The guy with the Russian
accent turned out to be Alec
Benke, a former marine engineer, who had immigrated from Vladivostok,
Russia via Alaska to California. He’s in his early forties and owns a
construction company in Camarillo specializing in rock landscaping.
Alec, who also has a home in the Pierpont area, had bought the mermaid
sculpture to install at his house. Where it ended up, however, was
behind a fence in his back yard. Much to the chagrin of his wife. It
was she who suggested that Alec donate the fifteen-foot mermaid to the
city. Alec called the City. The City said no thanks, but suggested he
call Sam.

Sam
Povar and Alex Benke stand in front of the new sculpture at Marina Park
that they helped purchase and install. The bronze sculpture, a mermaid
with a lute rising out of the ocean, is at the park’s west point next
to the breakwater

And that brings us to
Part IV. As Sam picks up the
story, “Alec came over, told me about the sculpture, and I said, ‘I’ve
got just the place for it: Marina Park’. ‘Oh, I love Marina Park,’ Alec
said and Sam replied, ‘I’m not interested in the park, I’m interested
in the point.’ So, I took Alec to the point, and he was amazed. He said
‘It was like a dream come true’.”

The City finally gave
permission to install the
sculpture. Alec donated the statue and paid for the construction
materials and installation. At Soter Point, the grand dame rose in the
air. The result is quite amazing.

Sam really believes in
this type of private-public
partnership. “We started this and now, like Roger Bannister and the
four minute mile, everyone wants to participate.” Sam has a list of
twenty-eight vacant lots that could be improved. When all the
landscaping at Soter Point is finished, Sam wants to have a grand
opening ceremony. He plans to bring his site map in hopes that other
folks will follow his example. Anyone interested in this type of
collaboration should contact him. “The City can help with space and
engineering. We can help with private financing. In this time of deep
budget cuts, the City is encouraging private people to help with these
type of improvements.”

Given what Sam, Andy, and
Alec have gone through, the
rising mermaid seems fitting. Life can sometimes be a dark, rough
ocean, but with a little inspiration and hard work, something beautiful
can come out of it. “Soter Point, with this beautiful statue, will
become iconic,” Sam says. And maybe not just the statue. Maybe the real
lasting impression will be their devotion, persistence, and effort for
art.